Lord of the Fading Lands

by C. L. Wilson

  “Demon-souled sorcerer,” Den hissed. “He’s got her so besotted, she’ll do anything he asks with her power.”

  “Her power?” Captain Batay repeated with interest.

  “She heals with a touch, finds things that are lost. And I’ve even seen her…” He broke off, flicked a quick glance at his companion, and remembered caution. “Never mind.” He frowned and turned his head to study the man beside him. A moment ago, at Den’s quick first glance, Batay’s eyes had looked like dark pits filled with glowing red coals. It must have been a trick of the light. Now they were their usual blue-green.

  White teeth flashed in the shadowy darkness. “Come, my young friend. There is much to be done.”

  A dark-sleeved arm wrapped around Den’s shoulders like a tentacle, making the butcher’s son shiver with a premonition of dread. He shook off the feeling. To reclaim Ellysetta Baristani and all the riches that would come when he put her powers to lucrative use, Den would even deal with a Drogan Blood Lord. Compared to those vicious blood-drinking cannibals, what was there to fear from the captain of a Sorrelian merchant ship?

  “What would you like to do now, Ellysetta?” Rain asked as they left the park.

  She flashed him a surprised look. She had been expecting him to go off to do whatever it was kings did when visiting a foreign city. Surely King Dorian and Queen Annoura had entertainment planned for him. “Don’t you have things to do?”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You wish me to leave you?”

  “Not at all. But I’m sure you came to Celieria for a purpose. Don’t let me keep you from it.” She bit her lip as his eyebrows rose higher. “That didn’t come out right. I don’t want you to leave, but I’ll understand if you must.”

  “You think there is business I must attend to, which I put off so I may court you?”

  “Yes.” She gave him an earnest look. “And you don’t have to. I’ll understand.”

  He was silent for a moment, staring so intently into her eyes that she forgot to breathe. His hand came up to cup her cheek, fingers sliding into her hair, the warmth of his palm cradling her jaw. His thumb stroked the high ridge of her cheekbone. “You are the reason I came to Celieria,” he told her. “My only purpose for being here.”

  “How can I be the reason you came?” she whispered. “You didn’t even know I was alive until two days ago.”

  “Three,” he corrected. “You called to me three days ago. That was when I first knew of you.” His thumb continued to brush across her cheek. “Do you remember what I said when we first spoke? I told you that I had seen the mist of your reflection in the Eye of Truth. It was the Eye that sent me here to find you, though I did not know it until you called me from the sky.”

  “But why would this ‘Eye of Truth’ send you to find me?”

  He took his hand from her face. Her cheek felt cold and bereft at the sudden absence of his warmth. “You are my shei’tani. My truemate.”

  “Is that what the Eye does? Sends Fey warriors to find their truemates?”

  “Nei, but you are no ordinary truemate, if there is such a thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am the Feyreisen, the Tairen Soul, and yet you are my truemate. No Tairen Soul before me has ever had a shei’tani.”

  “What about Lady Sariel?”

  He shook his head. “We loved as children. She knew I would never have a shei’tani and loved me enough to join her life with mine, giving up her desire for a shei’tan of her own.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She was e’tani, the mate of my heart. We chose the bond. You are shei’tani, the mate of my soul, my truemate. A Fey doesn’t choose the truemate bond. It chooses the Fey. For me there will never be another, whether you accept the bond or not.”

  “And for me?”

  His eyes held an odd combination of remorse and satisfaction. “Nei. You would not be my truemate were I not also yours. If you do not accept our bond, perhaps one day there might be a man with whom you could find some measure of happiness, but there will be no other mate who can reach your soul.”

  Why didn’t the prospect of never loving any man but him fill her with dread? It should have frightened her, or at the very least made her cry out against the unfairness of it all. And yet she could not help feeling an answering surge of satisfaction as her soul rose up to recognize and thrill in the bond between them.

  She knew the instant her feelings reached him. His eyes flared. Magic wrapped around her with sudden electric warmth. But the warmth changed in an instant as a powerful primitive force invaded her mind, calling to her, roaring with triumph and searing hunger, battering at the privacy of her soul. She felt something inside her start to give way, and fear rose hard and fast. With a cry, she flung herself out of Rain’s arms.

  Rain groaned aloud, a raw hoarse sound. His hands fisted and he closed his eyes. Sparks flashed around him like fireflies.

  “Sieks’ta,” he apologized tightly. “Do not be frightened. It is the tairen in me that frightens you, but I can control it. I will control it, shei’tani. I promise you. Please, do not shrink from me.” Even as he spoke, the sparks began to fade.

  “The tairen?” Her heart was pounding, her breath coming in shallow gasps.

  “The tairen lives in all Fey warriors,” he replied, opening his eyes. Relief flooded her as she saw that his control was back. His magic no longer sparkled around him, the glow in his eyes was dimming. “In most it is dormant, but when a Fey is born with full strength in all the Fey magics, the tairen awakens. These Fey become Tairen Souls. The tairen is conscious within them, leashed by their will, but always driving the Fey with the same instincts of a true tairen.”

  “It-it attacked me.”

  “Nei. It did not attack, it tried to claim.” His hand reached out, but stopped shy of touching her face. He pulled his hand back, thrust his fingers through his hair, and sighed. “Mating and the claiming of a mate is the fiercest of any tairen instinct. I have recognized you as my shei’tani. A moment ago your soul reached out, willingly, to mine. I felt it. The tairen in me responded as any tairen would to its mate. I should have been prepared. I was not.” His eyelids lowered. “For this, I apologize. I have dishonored myself.”

  Even though she was still frightened, her heart could not bear to see him humbled. He was the Tairen Soul, the hero of her life’s dreams. And for some strange reason, some joke of the gods she could not hope to fathom, he had claimed her as his mate. She bit her lip in indecision, then dragged a deep breath into her lungs and stepped forward to clasp his hands.

  At her touch, his eyes flew open and fixed on hers. “Shei’tani?”

  “I’m the one who should be sorry,” she told him. “You asked me not to fear you, to understand that you would never hurt me, but at the first test, I let myself be terrified. I’m afraid I’m not going to be a very good truemate for a Tairen Soul. I’m a coward at heart.”

  “You are all that a truemate should be,” he told her firmly. “Never think otherwise.” The harsh line of his mouth softened. “Come,” he said. “The afternoon is ours to enjoy. What would you like to do?”

  She bit her lip. “Actually, I have another appointment with the queen’s dressmaker to review fabric samples for my wedding dress.”

  “This does not appear to please you.”

  “No,” she admitted. She wasn’t looking forward to yet another half day of sneering dislike from the cold, haughty tradesmen recommended by Queen Annoura. She’d particularly hated standing in the presence of Maestra Binchi, the queen’s dressmaker, this morning, being measured—both physically and figuratively—by a woman who obviously found Ellie lacking. “But she’s making a special effort to fit me into her schedule. Besides, I have an appointment at the palace with the queen’s Master of Graces after that.”

  Rain glanced at Bel for a moment and his face grew still. A hint of anger entered his eyes, and Ellie realized Belliard had just related the morning’s events. Rain’s nex
t words confirmed her suspicions. “Bel has told me of this dressmaker. You are the Feyreisa. She will attend your pleasure, not the other way around. As will the queen’s Master of Graces.”

  Ellie blinked at the implacable finality of his statement. “Oh, but—”

  “Ellysetta.” He gave her a look that made her close her mouth and swallow her objection. “I despise Celieria. I remain here only to fulfill my oath to your father and to give you a little time at least to grow accustomed to me before I take you from all that is familiar to you. I will not cut short my time with you merely to indulge the self-importance of a foolish woman who insults the Tairen Soul’s truemate—and I am speaking of both the queen and her servants. The dressmaker will attend you tomorrow morning. Early, before I come to you. The Master of Graces will tutor you after that, while I am there to observe him. And, Ellysetta…” He lifted her chin with a gentleness that somehow made the fierce look in his eyes even more terrifying. “If anyone insults you again, you—not Bel—shall tell me of it.”

  Ellie gulped and nodded. She would promise almost anything to stop him looking at her with those eyes that leapt with flickering lights of cold fire.

  “Beylah vo. Thank you.” The hard lines of Rain’s expression softened and his eyes calmed. “Now, what would you like to do?”

  “I—” She wet her lips and tried to still her rapidly beating heart. “I don’t know.” She’d never been courted before, didn’t have the first idea of where to go or what to do. Inspiration struck. “You could take me flying. After all, I did win that wager.”

  “You did, indeed. Very well, then. Flying it is.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  With wings unfurled and joy unbound,

  I dance on laughter-spangled winds.

  I bathe in freedom’s rushing breath

  And drink cool nectar from the clouds.

  Up, up, through sunlit fields of blue,

  I soar through boundless ether.

  Look! Starlight shines at height of day.

  I hear infinity calling.

  —Tairen’s Flight, by Cadrian vel Sorendahl, Tairen Soul

  “Why did I bring my coat?”

  Rain cast an amused glance at Ellysetta. His shei’tani had been an uncorked bottle of questions since they’d dropped off the twins at her home. Her hesitance with him had been replaced by incessant curiosity and wide-eyed wonder that reminded him very much of a young tairen eagerly examining the world for the first time.

  “Because, shei’tani,” he replied, “it is very cold in the high reaches of the sky. If it gets too cold, I will weave Fire and Air around you to keep you warm, but then you will not feel the wind on your face. Feeling the wind is one of the best parts of tairen flight.”

  “What if I discover that I’m afraid of heights?”

  “You will not be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you know you will always be safe in my care.” Ah, blessed arrogance. He wanted to grin. He astonished himself. The Fey and tairen were teetering on the brink of extinction, darkness was rising again in Eld, and Rain Tairen Soul, Defender of the Fey, was happier than he’d been in a thousand years, all because he was taking his mate for a ride in the skies. Even the anger that had simmered in him since leaving Dorian—and roused again upon learning of Ellysetta’s treatment at the hands of Annoura’s tradesfolk—was gone. If Ellysetta was weaving a shei’dalin’s peace on him, he could not detect it.

  “Lillis and Lorelle are probably still wailing because they couldn’t come,” Ellie said. The twins had pitched an unholy fit, complete with copious tears, when Lauriana had informed them that, no, they were not going to ride on tairenback, and, no, they were not going to tag along with their sister and her betrothed this time.

  “This I doubt,” Rain replied. “Kiel and Kieran would not permit their unhappiness.” Kiel and Kieran had both stayed behind to entertain the girls, while the holders of Water and Earth in Ellysetta’s secondary quintet took their places for the afternoon.

  They walked through the city gates, out into the open fields that ringed the city. “Tell me again, why do we have to come out here?”

  “I prefer to have space for the Change. Besides, there are fewer eyes.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the crowds gathered on the walls. “Right.”

  She had a dry sense of humor, very Fey, that made him want to laugh as he had not in centuries. “Just imagine the audience we’d have if we had stayed in the city,” he replied.

  Rain brought the group to a halt about two hundred yards from the city wall. “Stay here, Ellysetta, and wait until I tell you it is safe to come forward.” She nodded.

  He turned and began jogging away, slowly at first, then faster and faster until he was sprinting. With a tremendous Air-powered leap, he catapulted himself into the sky and flashed into tairen form, winging high above the earth. Skyward he soared, up towards the mid-afternoon sun and into the bright, endless blue of the warm spring day. Black wings spread wide, he banked left and circled back over Celieria, back over the small knot of black-clad warriors and the single slender figure in navy skirts standing safely in their midst.

  He knew he was an impressive tairen, large, sleek, powerful. In flight, his tairen body was even more graceful, forelegs flattened aerodynamically against his belly, powerful hind legs trailing behind, his long, thick tail trailing even further, its blunt, curling tip acting like a rudder in flight. He watched his shadow speed across the Celierian landscape, and basked in the warmth of Ellysetta’s dazed admiration.

  Slowly, lazily, he glided down to earth and settled with graceful precision on the ground not far from Ellysetta and the Fey warriors. He stretched his wings high, flapped them, then tucked them against his back and padded towards Ellysetta. Stopping a few feet from her, he lay down on his belly beside her and gave a rumbling purr.

  «That was a prideful display.» Bel’s dry voice sounded in his mind.

  Tairen fangs bared in a grin. Bel knew him too well. Rain could have transformed without taking flight, but it wasn’t nearly as impressive. And he had wanted to impress his shei’tani. From the dazzled look on her face and the wonderment that he felt through their bond, it was plain he had succeeded.

  «Tairen are prideful creatures,» he replied. His glowing lavender eyes turned to Ellysetta. His tail swished slowly. «You can come closer now.»

  Ellie heard the voice in her mind, but it didn’t register. She had never seen anything so incredible or so beautiful as the sight of Rainier vel’En Daris leaping into the sky like a human dart and flashing into a huge, sleek, soaring tairen. He’d ridden the sky on broad, black wings, and she’d stood, earth-bound and wingless, aching to fly beside him. Not on him, but with him. Beside him, under the power of her own broad wings.

  «Shei’tani.» His voice sounded in her mind again, more insistent this time. His tairen head, larger than her body, bumped her gently, bringing her back to the present.

  She laughed as she stumbled back a half step. Lillis’s kitten bumped people with her head to demand attention in just the same way, though with considerably less force. An instinctive reflex made Ellie reach out to scratch the bony spot between his eyes. Beneath her hands, his tairen pelt was thick and silky, with a particularly lush nap. She had not expected something so huge to be so soft.

  The fur on his majestic head was short, thick, and velvety, growing at a very close crop as it neared his muzzle. His ears, alert and rounded at the tips, were set to either side of his tairen skull. Past his head, his fur grew thick and sleek. He glistened a glossy, intense black, rich and deep, without a hint of brown. His eyes, each larger than her head, were pure lavender with no visible pupil, and they seemed to be lit from within. His proud neck merged gracefully with his powerful chest and the rest of his long, sleek great cat’s body. Muscular forelegs ended in toed paws with sharp, retractable, curving ivory claws, while his hind legs bulged with undisguised strength. The end of his long tail curled and un
curled. His wings, tucked tightly against his body, seemed fragile compared to the rest of him, though she could see that the lightly furred membrane stretched across his wing bones was thick and supple.

  “You are beautiful,” she told him, petting the heavy muscles of his furred jaw, forgetting for a moment that this fiercely gorgeous creature was the same being as the fiercely gorgeous man who had claimed her.

  «I am glad you think so.» He gave a pleased vibrating purr as she continued to rub his head, and his eyelids half lowered over his large, shining tairen eyes. «I like that. You have a pleasing touch.»

  Green light flashed, and a small black leather saddle appeared where his neck joined his torso just above the jutting bones of his shoulders and wings. Long leather straps circled his neck and threaded behind his forelegs, holding the saddle firmly in place.

  «Come, shei’tani. Let us dance the winds.»

  “How will I get up there?” She gave a surprised cry when her body floated up into the air and settled in the U-shaped saddle. The high-backed cantle cradled her body. “Oh my.” She felt the unfamiliar sensation of a breeze blowing against her legs, and looked down. Her skirts were hiked up to her thighs, her long legs exposed for all to see. “Rain…” Before she could even voice her concern, black leather breeches appeared out of nowhere to cover her. She gaped for a moment, then blinked and closed her mouth. Casual magic was something she was going to have to get used to. “Earth?” she asked, because the breeches felt too real to be even a masterful illusion.

  «Aiyah.»

  “You made them from nothing. Isn’t that supposed to be difficult?”

  “It is,” Bel said. “He shows off for his mate.” There was dry humor, friendly mockery, and a trace of envy in Bel’s voice that would no doubt have embarrassed him if he’d heard it.

  Rain hissed at his friend and tossed his head. «Allow me to put your coat away, shei’tani.» That was all the warning she had before her long leather coat disappeared.